The Viral Chess Cheating Scandal with Anal Beads: Ben Mezrich Reveals the Full Story

[00:00:00] Today on The James Altucher Show. He doesn't get into Harvard, his dream, and he resets himself and he says, I'm going to be the greatest chess player in the world. I'm going to beat Magnus Carlsen. He had cheated numerous times online. To him it was no big deal. It was like, you know, everyone cheats online. And it's kind of funny when chess.com went back and his first instance of cheating online that they caught, the person he was playing against was also cheating. Magnus said something like, nobody plays me like this. Nobody beats me like this.

[00:00:27] He clearly believes that there's a chess mafia out to destroy him and he hates Danny Repp. He thinks Danny and the chess.com guys are evil and are personally trying to eliminate him. And he thinks Magnus is completely evil. And that's the point is that there was no evidence. And it was a big deal to sort of attempt to ruin somebody's life without the evidence to back it. This isn't your average business podcast, and he's not your average host.

[00:00:55] This is the James Altucher show. Oh my gosh. One of my favorite guests ever. He wrote the movie 21 because he wrote the book bringing down the house. He wrote the movie, the social network because he wrote the book that it was based on called the accidental billionaires.

[00:01:23] And now his latest page turner, which is also to be turned into a movie is about one of the most explosive scandals in modern sports. The Hans Niemann chess cheating controversy that took over the world. So you remember the story. Magnus Carlsen, the greatest chess player of all time, loses to this completely arrogant, egotistical 19 year old bad boy of chess, then accuses him of cheating. This has never happened before in the history of chess.

[00:01:49] What followed was a viral meltdown, the infamous anal beads tweet that broke the internet, death threats, lawsuits, and a chess world at war with itself. Ben Smith over a year embedded with Hans Niemann got inside access to Magnus' camp, chess.com, and the hidden drama behind the chess boards.

[00:02:06] So we dive deep into whether Hans actually cheated that day, the insane rise of online chess during COVID, the cutthroat world of prodigies, generational clashes in elite chess, and how one suspicious game nearly destroyed a young player's career. Welcome to one of my favorite guests, Ben Mesrick. Ben, I don't know if you know, like I was a 2250 player.

[00:02:35] I'm a master chess player and I've Norway chess. I've commentated on the game for TV the past couple of years. Oh, amazing. So, and I know all the top players. I don't know Hans, although for some reason he follows me on Twitter, but I know all the other top players. I know Danny very well. I'm really interested in your opinion of the whole thing, but it is a fascinating story for sure. And yeah, Hans is quite a character. You got to interview him quite a bit. I spent a year hanging out with Hans. I've been hanging out with Hans nonstop. He is everything you could imagine.

[00:03:04] He's like a, he's perfect for a movie. You know, they all are really. Like Magnus has a very unique personality. I mean, I've had dinner with him a couple of times. Both times. It's a very interesting experience. Hikaru has an interesting person. Like they're all, I don't want to say, I feel like it's a very Gen Z phrase to say neurodivergent. It's like, but they're all very different sort of people.

[00:03:29] And because when you spend your whole life from the age of six, seven, eight on doing one thing, 20 hours a day, your, your personality is going to be different from everyone else. A hundred percent. Yeah, they are. They are. I found them fascinating and very strange. A lot of them and socially kind of different, but it's fun. I mean, it's a fun and dramatic world to dive into, but you certainly know, I'm sure know more about it than I do. I just have this one window into it. So it's pretty fun.

[00:03:56] You know, the other interesting thing, and this is probably related to why a topic like this is even interesting, is that there's a cultural significance to chess. Like you've seen yourself, chess players aren't really smarter than anyone else necessarily. But yet, if you turn on any TV show, any movie, the smartest character in the movie always has a chessboard in the background. Like there's some cultural significance to chess. Why do you think this cheating scandal has created such a worldwide phenomenon and interest?

[00:04:26] I mean, a billion people have like watched videos about this. Yeah. I mean, I think there's a lot going on to the story and what attracted me to the story is that on the one hand, you have, you know, the greatest player of all time. And he's, you know, he's the Mozart of chess as they call him. And I think he represents something that you're talking about there, which is that even though, you know, you don't expect a chess player to know everything about everything, they hold a certain magic.

[00:04:53] We look at them and we think prodigies, we think people who are touched by God in some interesting and bizarre way because they can do something that 99.9% of us can't do. And it's, and it looks like magic when you see them do it in certain points. Yes. And so you have Magnus on the one hand, and then you have this kid, this 19 year old bad boy who's kind of breaking the rules, who really represents a different generation.

[00:05:17] I mean, he's squarely like this Gen Z, this kind of like streamer who's, who, who's doing all of these wild things to get attention. And when the two of them sit down to play each other, the expectation of course is that Magnus destroys him, but it goes the other way entirely. And so it exploded for a number of reasons.

[00:05:36] The accusation of cheating, even though cheating is not necessarily rare in chess because there's so many stories of it at this level in this particular game against Magnus, it's pretty spectacular. And then you have this viral tweet, you know, about his, maybe his method of cheating, which really caught a lot of attention because it's both funny and it's, and it's a perfect kind of viral thing. And so there's a generational thing going on there.

[00:06:01] And then you have this whole other story about the rise of chess.com, you know, and this multi-billion dollar industry that's grown out of nowhere. So it combines a lot of the things that I write about, like it combines the sort of scam, like bringing down the house kind of like, you know, how do, how do you beat an authority figure? And then it also combines something out of the social network, which is this sort of bootstrap company that may or may not be the bad guy in the story. And so it's got a lot of elements to it for sure. That's fascinating actually. Yeah.

[00:06:27] So if you look at like, you know, all of your, all of your books, and I didn't really think about it until now, there is this common theme where it's something that's culturally attractive, like the notion of card counters in Las Vegas or, you know, Bitcoin billionaires or accidental billionaires, like with Facebook, like these kids who just suddenly out of nowhere become billionaires. And there's, but there's always something a little scandalous going on. So it's these popular young figures and something culturally significant and interesting.

[00:06:55] But there's a little bit of, there's a tinge of mystery and dishonesty. Yeah. I mean, Or a question of dishonesty. It might not be dishonest, like 21, is it dishonest or is it not? Right. It's really smart people who don't like authority very much. And they kind of live in that gray area where you don't know whether it's right or it's wrong. And some of them I write about do cross the line pretty, pretty grievously. But in general, it's people who are kind of walking that edge. And I think that's exciting because you don't, you know, it's hard to judge people.

[00:07:23] I don't judge my characters at all ever. But I think like certainly something like Hans, some people, even if he cheated, don't necessarily think of it as this horrible thing, but as this incredible thing, how did he get away with it? I mean, there's definitely a shift now that I've seen, generational shift again, where young people love Hans and an older generation doesn't.

[00:07:47] And I think there's definitely something going on in the culture where characters who get away with things, but they're ambitious, we identify with them. Because, you know, so many rules are being broken all around us all the time now that it's hard to judge anybody for breaking rules anymore. Yeah. And just to clarify one thing you said, like, yes, there is cheating that goes on in chess, but that's almost all online. Because you can have a computer on your phone and, you know, and again, and you mentioned this repeatedly in your book,

[00:08:16] there are algorithms to detect even that. And they're very good algorithms and they catch, let's say, 99% of the cheating or 90%. But over the board is very, very hard to cheat. Yeah. I mean, it's happened a few times historically, famously, but it, as long as there are security measures in place, it's hard to cheat. But the technology is getting better and better and better. I mean, like I say in the book, you know, any 12 year old with an iPhone can be Magnus now. It's foolishly simple to be Magnus.

[00:08:44] And 10 years ago, it was really hard to cheat at chess over the board. Right now, all you need is a partner and something in your ear and anybody can do it. And so the question of whether cheating is happening over the board more now, the guys at chess.com would argue that cheating over the board is now easier than cheating online. Because cheating online, you're being watched constantly. There are algorithms running in the background. They can see if you're cheating and they have very good ways to detect it.

[00:09:10] But over the board, the only way they can see it is when you walk in, if they want to correctly. While you're doing it, it's much harder to catch you, actually. You only need one move. You're a high level chess player. And this is what Magnus has said famously. He just needs one move. And one move he would never be beaten again. If someone gave you one move at the right time in a game.

[00:09:31] And so to cheat in chess over the board, all you really need is something deep in your ear and a live stream going on with or someone watching from the audience who has access to a phone to give you one move. So even though we want to believe that it's this pristine, very hard-to-beat situation, I would not be surprised if there's a lot of cheating going on over the board. I just don't think you'd be able to know if people have done it correctly. Yeah, it's tricky. It's also a reputational risk.

[00:09:59] Like if you're cheating over the board and you're caught, you're just dead. Right. You're never playing chess again in a tournament. And everybody who knows you thinks you're a scumbag. Yeah. When I look at this story and I think Hans have actually walked into the Sinkfield Cup, this was such a huge opportunity for him. I mean, he's playing. He shouldn't be at that level. He's playing against Magnus. It's a really big deal to have the balls to walk in there and cheat. What you would be risking, like you're saying, would be enormous.

[00:10:28] And this is a kid who is on his way up. I mean, he's a really good chess player. You know, would he have the balls to do something like that? You know, it's a good question. You're right. I mean, it's, you know, reputationally, it would ruin you. But at the same time, done at the right time, it could be enormous. As other people say in the book, once you're into the top 20, you don't ever fall out. It's hard to fall out of the top 20 because of the way the ranking works. If you can get into the 20, you get invited to the right events.

[00:10:57] You don't play against people that are going to knock you down so far. You stay in the top 20. So there are sort of benefits to cheating that might outweigh the risks. Yeah. And if you're in the top 20, like the top 20 of any sport, you're making a great living. And outside the top 20, and this is true for any sport from tennis, golf, chess, you're not making a great living if you're out of the top 20. And so there is this benefit. There is incentive for someone, you know, who is inclined this way.

[00:11:24] There is incentive to cheat to get into the top 20 because you're making a living that could last you a lifetime. Now, the one thing that's really interesting with Hans, which I'm curious what you kind of uncovered there, is his rise in chess was incredibly fast. He had a regular pace for the first 14 years of his career, say, or 10 years of his career.

[00:11:46] And then suddenly he goes from 2,400 rating, which is a very good player, to being one of the top 50 players in the world, top 20 players in the world. Like that was incredibly fast and very rare. I don't know of any other instance that where someone's moved from a regular strong player to being among the best so quickly. And what do you think happened there? Well, there's two different narratives there. So if you look at it from Hans' perspective, you have to remember there was an unusual moment in time with COVID and everything.

[00:12:15] And so it's a lot like when you see all these poker people come out of nowhere and suddenly in the World Series of Poker, because they've been playing 24 hours a day online poker locked in their room. Hans played more chess than maybe anybody alive. He not only played online continuously, but over the board, he traveled the entire world and played some crazy number of tournaments. He was just going from tournament to tournament to tournament playing. And he did.

[00:12:42] He had a staggeringly fast rise, which he would attest to the fact that he just simply played 10 times more than anyone else has ever played. And he was driven at a level that wasn't driven. Now, chess.com in their report attempted to analyze kind of his crazy fast rise. And they did agree that it was unusually steep, that people normally also at that age don't tend to rise that fast. It's kind of crazy, but it's not something that you can look at and say, OK, that's evidence of anything.

[00:13:11] I mean, it was a unique time period. It was a unique moment in history where a lot of weird things happened. Chess.com itself rose dramatically during COVID for similar reasons. Everybody was stuck at home and they say you could sit there and look at Italy. And as Italy locked down, suddenly chess.com's numbers in Italy became 10 times what they were. And so, you know, it was a strange time.

[00:13:34] And Hans is a strange kid who had he had left home living on his own in New York in a tiny little apartment that he was paying for by playing chess, you know, teaching chess or whatever. And he had dedicated his life to it. I'm sure a lot of people do do that. But I think he was driven in a way that it's it's you know, it's hard to ignore. So who knows? Who knows?

[00:13:55] But it was also playing in places all across Eastern Europe in places that were not well regulated, that did not have security measures, that often had live streams that were not delayed. And interestingly enough, chess.com in their report said something to the effect that when Hans was playing something that didn't have that was live streamed, he always did better than when he played in a match that wasn't live streamed. Overall, his numbers were higher.

[00:14:21] And so that was that evidence of something or was that just because, you know, it's a more important match or whatever. It's impossible to say, but it's interesting. And so I don't know. I don't know. I don't know the answer to the question of why did he raise rise so quickly. But on the other hand, you look at how he plays now and he certainly has the ability. I mean, he's he's a top 20 chess player. So maybe he was down where he shouldn't have been because of his life, because of his attitude, because of the kind of person he was.

[00:14:50] Maybe it's the opposite that he should have risen earlier and he was his own worst enemy. And you could say he wasn't invited to a lot of things before because of his his reputation, because of his, you know, character. Maybe he was kept out of the tournaments that would have allowed him to rise quicker. I mean, he would argue there's this chess mafia that was keeping him down because he had been caught cheating by Danny Ranch online. And they decided to go against him and turn it into this whole thing. You know, he is admitted to cheating online.

[00:15:20] He's admitted to a few now. And after the after the Netflix doc, now he's admitted to, I think he said more than a dozen originally admitted to two. Chess.com thinks that he cheated over 100 times online. But, you know, he feels that he was kept out of the world of chess. And that's why his numbers were so lower than it should have been. And now we're seeing the real Hans Niemann. So I don't know. There's a lot of different ways to look at it. You know, he was living in New York by himself starting at around the age of 16. Like, what's up with that?

[00:15:49] Like his parents were normal, professional parents. There's something going on in his family life that he's very closed off about. His family had to move. I think his father had some issues. And I think there's some he doesn't like to talk about it, but he was essentially moved away from home. He wanted to go to this school, the Columbia Prep in New York, which is a wonderful school. His dream was to go to Harvard. And his family couldn't all move to New York City for him to go to Columbia Prep. So he moved by himself.

[00:16:19] But there's a little more to it than that. And in the book, I kind of you have Magnus's family life where he's got incredible support system. You know, his father is his rock, is his manager. His sisters are with him. Almost every video you see him as a child, he's surrounded by family. And then you have Hans, who's kind of like in the old Rocky movies. He's the one with the mohawk training in the dirty gym where he's like by himself in a room struggling. At one point, he goes completely broken. He's basically got nothing.

[00:16:48] And he's flying to some tournament and God knows where. And, you know, this is rock bottom. And he doesn't get into Harvard, his dream. He's turned down and he resets himself. And he says, I'm going to be the greatest chess player in the world. I'm going to beat Magnus Carlsen. It's really a great movie moment for sure. But it's real. I mean, if you talk to Hans, this really was what happened. But it's checkered past. I mean, he had cheated numerous times online. To him, it was no big deal. It was like, you know, everyone cheats online.

[00:17:14] And it's kind of funny when chess.com went back and his first instance of cheating online that they caught, the person he was playing against was also cheating. So it was like two computers cheating against each other, you know, playing against each other. And it's, you know, can you blame Hans for cheating in a world where a lot of people were cheating because he wanted to get ahead on his streaming platform? I mean, a lot of people do blame him. But at the same time, can you blame Magnus for being suspicious of someone that had this reputation of having cheated?

[00:17:43] So, you know, there's a lot going on. Take a quick break. If you like this episode, I'd really, really appreciate it. It would mean so much to me. Please share it with your friends and subscribe to the podcast. Email me at Alcatra at gmail.com and tell me why you subscribed. Thanks.

[00:18:11] First off, I will say I have never cheated online. I play tens of thousands of games. But I'll make one admission. I am the very first person in history to cheat online. Really? Because I helped work on Deep Blue. So back in the 90s, they had just moved to IBM. I went to grad school at Carnegie Mellon University. I was office mates with CB, the guy who made Deep Blue. And one time on ICC, which I helped create, by the way.

[00:18:39] So on ICC, the first internet chess server, I was playing against this guy who I just personally disliked. So I logged into Deep Blue and I cheated and beat him. It's hilarious because then they probably had no idea that was even possible, right? Yeah, yeah. No, it was. And Deep Blue was like maybe 2,500 strength, but we were both like 2,200 strength. So it was good enough to. Amazing story. That's awesome. I would have put that in the book if I had known. First person to cheat. But then I never. But then it's not worth it.

[00:19:08] There's no reason to cheat. There's no benefit at all of cheating. Right. I mean, for Hans, though, there kind of was. And it was the streaming thing. You can't make money as a streamer if you're not at a certain level of chess. No one's going to care. Well, I guess people have. But for Hans, you know, being able to play against a Hikaru or something, you know, it's a big deal. And if he beats some of those people, his stream gets a lot more views.

[00:19:34] And so there was a real sort of building process there that cheating, you know, was helpful for. So it wasn't about like cheating for money. It was more about cheating for reputation to become a bigger player. And I think at first people were unaware of how good chess.com is at catching cheaters, how much resources they've spent building up their sort of cheap algorithms, their ability to see that if you move away from this screen to a different screen, they can see that. They know that you're looking at other screens on your computer.

[00:20:04] They can tell how long you're working on a, you know, and time is a big issue in cheating. You know, if you spend a long time, you know, you go quickly in one move and then a long time on the next move, that looks different than a real player who would take a longer time on the first move and then quicker on the next couple of moves. And it's things like that where they can really use their data analysis to catch cheaters. Hans was not aware of that when he was a little kid, obviously. Um, so I don't know.

[00:20:29] Yeah, there's, there's a, there's, there's reasons to cheat online if you're trying to build a career in chess. Yeah. And then, you know, there's something to what Magnus said where after the game, he and his coach, Peter said they felt like they were playing someone who was cheating. And I do believe, first off, I'll just say upfront, I don't think Magnus was cheating in that tournament, but there is something to be said about the fact that you can kind of

[00:20:55] tell when someone is cheating against you, there's a style of play where you feel like you just never have any chance at all. They make moves that are just so far beyond, you know, particularly for Magnus to say that like, there's something to be said about that. Like you have to take that credibly. So I can't say a hundred percent for sure. Magnus is making an accusation. He really has knowledge that other people don't have in terms of styles of play. So, so, so that has to be taken seriously.

[00:21:23] And, and, and there was something to the fact that Hans seemed to be almost like oblivious to what was going on the board and just making his moves. Like there's something that Magnus was picking up on that, that is correct. Like, like, and I don't really know how to, how to combine that with the fact that I don't in my heart feel like Hans was cheating there. Like Magnus is also credible. So that's why it's a, an impossibly difficult situation to really. Yeah. When you get into the level of what was actually going on at that moment in their lives, it

[00:21:53] also gets more interesting because Magnus was coming off. He was in a interesting sort of depressed period in his, in his life and career in a weird way where he would, he had some issues, relationship issues. He was stepping away from being world champion. He had been to Miami where he'd already played Hans and didn't think much of his playing style. So he already had in his head that Hans wasn't a threat. Hans wasn't supposed to be there. And then at the game itself, a lot of weird things happened with the photographer.

[00:22:23] I was able to talk to everybody involved and actually see some secret tape of the actual game. I got in at some inside stuff and you know, the photographer had, was trying to get a picture of, of, of Hans was chewing gum while he was playing. And, and he was kind of blowing a bubble and the photographer wanted to get a picture of Hans blowing a bubble while he beat Magnus. So he stepped over towards the board and Magnus saw that and thought that this didn't look right. And this person's coming close to the board, you know, said something.

[00:22:51] There were some words said also earlier in the match, the photographer, another player had, had asked the photographer for the soccer score of a, of a soccer game going on. And the photographer had made signals to the guy telling him the score, which Magnus had seen. There was weirdness going on. So you can look at that and say, well, Magnus probably had a reason to think something weird was going on here. Plus he used a, uh, uh, uh, uh, and you know this better than I would, but he was, he was playing in a way that was not normal for him.

[00:23:20] And Hans immediately picked up on it and made a move that didn't make a lot of sense that Hans would know that move. And then in the interview afterwards, Hans's story didn't make sense at all of where he, how he knew that new move. He said, Oh, I miraculously had just been watching this game with so-and-so earlier. That person hadn't even used that move. So it was a weird thing that got confusing for sure. Yeah. And that can't be explained. Like, I guess you're the first person to reveal this because until I read your book, I didn't realize about the photographer situation.

[00:23:48] No, nobody knew that because nobody other than me, I believe it's spoken to him. And so I don't think anybody knows that. And it wasn't in a Netflix doc and they, I don't think they got to that. I have a, there's a couple of things in the book. There's certainly like five or six things in the book that just have never come out. So hopefully they'll get picked up. You never know in the book business anymore, whether anybody reads anything, but there's certainly some secrets about what actually went on that I think changed the story a little bit. But that is one. When you look at that, you think, okay, now Magnus probably, you know, was suspicious already.

[00:24:16] And then he sees the photographer signaling a soccer score. It's weird. And then walking up to the table, you know. In your book, you say how Magnus approached the photographer and said, this is a huge tell. Like that seems unbelievable to me that Magnus would even do that. Like that's like an accusation in the middle of a game. Yes. And afterwards his father kind of, they apologized in a way. I mean, the photographers are very respected and you know, Leonard Oates is like one of the top guys who's photographed everybody and he has fine relationships with everybody involved.

[00:24:43] He's a very serious person, but he's the one guy in the room who has a computer, you know, and he's sitting right there with a computer and, and he's got his camera equipment and he's moving around. And yeah, Magnus, you know, did not like that he approached a table and then Magnus sends his dad over to question him. His dad then that night from the hotel goes over there to, to interrogate the photographer and figure out what the heck is going on in this room. And everyone in the end is like, okay, it had nothing to do with the photographer.

[00:25:10] It was not, he was not cheating, but, but it was, it was a very strange moment, you know, that, that led to all this. What else was unusual when you were looking at the tape? I think Hans was clearly not paying, pretending or, or not paying attention. He was touching his ear a lot, which is something that may or may not mean anything at all. You know, he had, he had big shaggy hair at the time and he was doing a lot of this. He was, you know, moving around a lot. He was not, you know, focused on the game at all.

[00:25:38] And he would look at the game and then go like, and then he would make a move. And Magnus meanwhile, was just getting more and more upset and frustrated and angry and leaning forward over the table. And you could just see he was losing. That's, that's, you know, you know, so I don't know. I don't know what any of that means. I mean, Hans is a jittery guy though. So it's like when you're hanging out with him, he's, he's like that. He's, he's moving a lot. His air is, is a big thing. And so you can't get any real, you know, feel necessary for that.

[00:26:06] Other than that, I can understand why Magnus was confused by how it was going. Because you have both the fact that over the board, Hans is making moves that Magnus clearly thought Hans wouldn't be able to make. And then you have Hans's demeanor where, you know, he just doesn't. Magnus said something like, nobody plays me like this. Nobody beats me like this. Like, it's just not possible when I get beat. You know, they beat me a certain way. They're really focused. Like they're really playing chess and nobody just barely pays attention and beats me with the black pieces.

[00:26:35] So what's Hans explanation for that? Okay. Hans felt he was playing his idol. He was, this is the way he says, and that he was, that it was a huge match for him. He was nervous. He was excited. And then he quickly realized that he was winning and that Magnus was making mistakes, that Magnus was losing to an idiot. You know, like, like that, that he's, he's funny when you talk to Hans about it, but he's basically like saying that Magnus really couldn't believe he was losing to Hans and Hans was,

[00:27:04] was enjoying the fact that his, you know, that Magnus was losing. So he doesn't explain away like all the movements and the chewing gum. He just said he didn't, you know, he wasn't, he, it wasn't particularly difficult that Magnus was blundering. You know what? You can put together a narrative where you're like, you're suggesting and you suggest in the book, Magnus was overconfident. He had just crushed Hans even casually a few months or weeks earlier in Miami, like when they were playing on the beach.

[00:27:30] He really thought Hans was a significant level below him, which by the way is probably true. And so he got overconfident. He played an opening that was a little bit rare and maybe even Magnus didn't know all the nuances. Hans starts beating him. And then from Hans point of view, Hans is, he knows he's psychologically annoying. And so he just amped that up to, because he knows Magnus can't handle it. Like Magnus can handle it, but not against Hans.

[00:28:00] There was just the chess speaks for itself interview a few months earlier. Yeah. I think he amped that up to just drive Magnus crazy to, so, and he knew, you know, psychology is an important part of the game. He knew that that was going to increase his chances of winning. Yeah. And then there's another level to this that earlier that day, and this is all in the book, Magnus had breakfast with Danny wrench who, who runs chess.com. And at the breakfast, it was clear to Danny that Magnus and his father and the, and

[00:28:28] their, their team were already uncomfortable playing Hans. That they had actually even thought about not playing. That, that Hans had a reputation, that there were whispers going around that he had cheated online. And that he, after Miami, there were people who were saying that, that he shouldn't have been in the tournament, that people were saying they didn't want to be in the tournament because Hans was there. So there was already in Magnus's mind, some level of suspicion.

[00:28:57] So when you add that to the mix, the idea that he starts to act weird and he sees all this, he immediately goes back to that in his mind. And as you said, it's a mental game. And if you think the guy across for you might be cheating, even if he's not, it changes how you play and it changes what you think he's going to do next. And, and for all, you know, the reason that Magnus made an unusual move in the beginning was because he was suspecting that Hans would cheat and he maybe wanted to throw that off in some way.

[00:29:24] So, you know, it, it, it, and this is the reason why I think it's unfair to say it doesn't matter if you cheated online, it shouldn't make a difference because if, if you cheated before, it changes the, the way people want to play you. And, and I think that's important to, to take into, that's why the game has to say, say, sacrosanct. That's why you do have to have no cheating in chess because it's not the same game if cheating exists.

[00:29:53] And so, you know, you can look at both sides of this and be, and have sort of a, you know, a connection to both players, I think in a different way. I genuinely like Hans, even though I think he's completely crazy. I don't say that in a negative way. I mean, he's, he's, he's out there, like you hang out with them and he's clearly believes that there's this chess mafia out to destroy him. And he hates Danny wrench. He thinks Danny and the chess.com guys are evil and are personally trying to, to eliminate him. And he thinks Magnus is completely evil.

[00:30:22] I mean, and, and he can be very unhinged in person. I mean, he loves Bobby Fisher. He worships Bobby Fisher, both good and bad, you know, the spiral down almost as much as the ability, the isolation and all of that stuff. He's an interesting character, but I have a lot of feeling for him and I get why he feels the world is against him and it almost goes beyond chess. You know, it's tough. It's a tough world. Yeah. Because, you know, there's only, you could only get to like the top 10 if you're playing

[00:30:52] players in the top 10, but if you're not invited to the tournaments, because let's say Magnus or her car or whoever doesn't want you invited to the tournaments, you're never going to be a professional chess player to make a living. And so, you know, like after this accusation, how did Hans just deal psychologically with everybody hating him? Not well, I would say not well, you know, there's, there's famous incidents where like where he trashed a hotel room and he really, you know, he describes those.

[00:31:21] Oh, maybe I broke a couple of vases and oh, I threw an umbrella through a mirror, through a picture window. And then, and then he walked downstairs and he basically handed his credit card over and say, I'll pay for whatever I did. But he destroyed a hotel room. One thing he did. There's a famous incident where he's playing chess and the, the person across from him broke the head off the chess piece, um, which is in my story. And then allegedly they ended up in the parking lot having a conversation.

[00:31:48] Hans, Hans, you know, in the lawsuit, he accuses Magnus of getting a group of people at one of the European competitions to start screaming Hans the cheater and then marching through the streets of, of whatever little European town it was drunkenly screaming Hans the cheater all over the place. Like he, he definitely spiraled where he really got angry and then he eventually sued, you know, he sued chess.com for a hundred million dollars.

[00:32:14] So he definitely spiraled because he believed that he has no recourse that this, this chess mafia was against him. He had been called a cheater and without evidence, you know, in his mind. And, and so he got very upset. So he was, the anger level is through the roof with him certainly right after it. And I think it goes back and forth now as he's attempted to sort of, he's rebuilt himself in chess, you know, he's played extremely good chess, but, and with Hans, you never know how much is performative and how much is real.

[00:32:44] Also there's kind of this character that he plays as well, but I think most of it is real. I think he was seriously wounded by this and, and his reputation and he has no, you know, I don't know where he goes from here, but we'll see. But, but, you know, it should be mentioned like it's, it's very difficult to kind of come out of that. Like in, in terms of chess accusations of, of, of cheating, there's been at least one probable suicide because of this.

[00:33:10] There's been mental health issues across the board when people have been accused of cheating to the point where they can, they're out of the game. They can't play. So Hans having survived this and actually he's ranked number 12th in the world now, which is much higher than he was then. It's sort of unbelievable. Like, and now it's being number 12 in the world. It's pretty legit. Like he's not, it's not like he's cheating every tournament. No, he's not good. The other part of this story is, you know, the, the dirty part, the anal beads part of this story.

[00:33:37] So this is like, this turns it in, turns it from being just somebody cheated at chess to a worldwide phenomenon. It was because of a viral tweet. Yeah. And I'm very proud of this moment as a journalist. I think I should win the Pulitzer for this. I'm the only person who tracked down the anal beads, the actual tweet, not the anal beads themselves, but the tweet. I found where that came from. And there's a chapter in the book.

[00:34:03] Like there's literally a dude in Liverpool, England, who's a ticket taker on like a train. That's what he does for a living. Who his part-time hobby is being an internet troll. And every night he sits on his couch and he tries to make things go viral. And he and his buddies were on some Reddit board and they had seen that Hans had just been accused of cheating and joking around on this Reddit board. They were like, how do you think he cheated? You know, it would be really funny if he had put like a vibrator in his butt. And then someone's like, oh, that's not really funny. Oh, you know, it's cool.

[00:34:33] Anal beads. And they were like, that's perfect. So then they go over to this chest streamer, a chest bra, I guess it's out of. Yeah, Eric Hansen. Right. Eric Hansen. And they just bomb the comment section over and over again with like anal beads, anal beads, using anal beads just to get Eric Hansen to say it online. And then when he says it, they capture the, they clip it, they put it in a tweet. And so this dude who calls himself Babs in Liverpool tweets it and then nothing happens. He doesn't think anything of it.

[00:35:01] He goes to work and suddenly his phone starts going off and Elon Musk had retweeted his tweet. So the anal beads actually had nothing to do with the story at all. It was just this dude in Liverpool who I hunted down and interviewed, had a great time with him. And I love that sort of thing. Like the idea that, you know, that's how this world works now. It's like you want, you need attention. You need to get noticed for anything to become huge. And that if it had not been for that tweet, none of us would be talking about this.

[00:35:28] This, this story would have disappeared pretty much overnight. I really believe because there's been cheating things before and yeah, they've led to sort of things in the chess world, but outside of the chess world, it's rare that a cheating scandal gets noticed, but it was anal beads. It was literally this tweet that I think made this worth a book in a movie. It's so funny because I didn't know that part of the story until I read the book, your book. Cause I always thought it was Eric Hansen just joking around. No, no, it was controlled.

[00:35:58] It was like a actual purposeful situation by a internet troll to get it out there. And it's just cracks me up. It's that's how this works. It's like, there's so many articles about all these troll farms and all of this stuff, but the reality is it actually works. It's the only form of marketing that still works to be honest. Um, and it was wild and yeah, nobody else found that story. So I'm pretty proud of that.

[00:36:35] So at this point now, it's several years later, Hans is 12th in the world. You know, Magnus is, I don't want to say he's retired or even semi-retired. Like he's still an active player. He's playing next week in Norway. Do you think they could ever get to the point where they have respect for each other? Again, Hans being 12th in the world is deserving of some respect. Right. Well, here's the interesting thing. So in the book, the book ends in kind of a perfect, to me, a story came to an end in a right way because one year later, two years later, they had an actual rematch.

[00:37:04] The first time they met again was at a chess.com speed online, but live final in Paris, which is just so spectacular as a writer to have an ending where all your characters are in one room after having had this vicious, dramatic hatred of each other. It's very Shakespearean. It's like the ending of a play. And literally, they faced head to head. And Danny was there announcing it. And Hikaru was there. That's the other person who had to play Hans. It was every person there in one room.

[00:37:34] And Magnus destroyed it. He destroyed Hans. And then Hikaru also destroyed Hans. And then basically, Magnus' interview afterwards is basically, you can see he's not on my level. And so, it's interesting that now, you're right, now Hans has continued to rise. I mean, Magnus is still the greatest in the world, I think, but through, because of, you know, he's aging. And that's the other part of the story that I'm always fascinated. I've always loved prodigies. I think prodigies are just something that, you know, it's wild to think about that in chess, math, and music.

[00:38:04] There's people that, like three years old, are suddenly, like, incredible. And it's weird. It's something in the brain. If you were religious, you'd believe it's something religious. It's just so rare and beautiful and magical. But then they get older, right? And then you have Magnus, and now he's sitting across from a seven-year-old, right? Or he's sitting across from a nine-year-old. And suddenly, he's not the prodigy anymore. How do you deal with that? And I think Magnus is dealing with that right now. At some point, he has to stop, you know?

[00:38:34] And what do you do then? And so, you still have, Hans has said this in many interviews, I'm going to be playing while you and Hikaru are old men in Hawaiian shirts sitting on a beat. You know, he's joking about, you'll have to watch me be number one in the world. But that's kind of how it works, right? In all of these kind of things, eventually, you have to stop being the kid, right? The special one. And someone else takes over.

[00:38:58] And so, to your question, I believe, just from my interaction with everybody, that Magnus really, really believes Hans cheated. He still believes that to this day. And I really believe that Magnus has a very heavy dislike for Hans. And I think Hans very much says or believes that, regardless of whether he cheated or not, and of course, Hans says he absolutely did not cheat, that Magnus had no reason to accuse

[00:39:24] him, that Magnus is this, you know, mafia Don with Danny and then Eric running chess.com. And so, there's no love there at all. So, I don't know. Listen, I think they'll play each other. I think that Magnus would sit down and play Hans, and Hans would certainly want to play Magnus. But I don't think that, I don't think that they're going to do it as friends. You know what I'm saying? I think it's more like, you know. What was interesting in your book, too, there was another incident that I didn't know about

[00:39:51] until reading your book, which is Magnus, apparently, right after that initial game where he thought Hans cheated, he wanted to go to Hans' room and ask him directly if he cheated. Which is, I respect the naivete of that, that someone is going to just admit to doing wrong. Like, it shows Magnus' purity for the game, and I love that. But it was just an interesting thing. Like, it's also not very smart in the sense that no one's going to admit it, just if you ask them. Yeah, it's a great scene.

[00:40:19] So they get back to the hotel room, and yeah, Magnus is like, I'm just going to walk over to his room. And his dad is like, no, that's not going to be a good idea. It would have gone probably really badly, I would think. But yes, Magnus' father is, to me, a very great character. He really believes in this kind of old world honesty thing that chess is a thing for gentlemen and that you sit down and you play with someone, and there's honor in this. And the idea of cheating to him is so out of this world. He can't imagine that somebody would cheat.

[00:40:48] To him, it's like, he still, I don't believe Magnus' dad believes Hans could have cheated simply because he doesn't think anyone would do that. So even when Magnus came out of the game and said to his dad, you know, I think he cheated, Magnus' dad is like, well, let's calm down. Let's go look at this. Let's investigate. I mean, you're, you know, it's your, you're the one making the call. But I think his dad is like, I don't want to go that way. He supports his son, but it's, it's so out of bounds to him.

[00:41:16] And so Magnus does want to go confront Hans. He wants to go over to his room and just ask him, point blank. Would have been really interesting if he had, but I'm sure Hans would have. It could have. Henrik, you know, Magnus' dad is a, is you're right. He's a great guy. He really, I've seen him give talks about raising Magnus. He really did a good job creating the best, not creating, but, you know, having a son who's the best chess player in the world. I've actually played a match against Henrik, which he won four to two. As you know, he's a very good player. And I've had dinner with both Henrik and Magnus.

[00:41:46] He's, he's a very good guy. I really like Henrik a lot, but you know, to the point of whether Hans cheated, there's also the room had no windows, or maybe there was one tiny window in the corner of the ceiling and there was no way really to, to cheat. Like, I wonder how Magnus thinks Hans cheated. Well, no, there was a live stream. It was live streamed and it wasn't a delay, I believe. Or yeah, there wasn't a delay.

[00:42:13] And so I don't want to go too much into accusations that I don't know the answer to, but there certainly was possibility. So the chess.com guys to investigate it. First of all, they got ahold of thousands of dollars worth of cheating equipment. Just to see what you could do. The one that was used at the Sinkfield cup was a cheap, like $19 one you can buy off of Amazon would not have caught most devices. And the devices are so sophisticated nowadays that you can get, you know, a little thing

[00:42:42] that goes really deep in your ear. It's not, you can't see it. It's invisible. It can't be detected by anything except for an RFID detector. So no regular wand is going to detect it. And it's paired to a cell phone. The cell phone has to be within, you know, not that close a distance to it to be paired to it. And then you need an accomplice. And someone is watching the live stream and flicks a thing on your phone and you get a vibration. And what it's basically going to tell you is, you know, you could probably do Morse codey

[00:43:11] kind of thing or have some sort of code already prepared and do that. And so the idea is, I think in the, in the moment, Magnus believed it was some sort of signal, right? Because he had two cues or goes after the photographer or something in the room. But I think chess.com people were more thinking there's an accomplice somewhere nearby who's watching a stream or a feed of some sort who's able to do this. Again, it's all kind of crazy to think that Hans could set something like that in short notice.

[00:43:40] Hans was not expected to be at the Sinkfield. He was replacing another player. He wasn't good enough to be in that championship. He wasn't ranked high enough. He had flown in from Turkey and had actually run out of the middle of a other event that he was supposed to be at to play at the Sinkfield Cup. So it's unusual. It would be unusual. But at the same time, and in my book, I kind of reveal there was somebody in St. Louis who was a person of interest for chess.com having been closed for cheating at chess.com who

[00:44:08] was a close associate or friend of Hans. I'm not saying that means anything. I'm just saying that's out there. That's out there now. So there's a potential accomplice. I don't know if that's true or not. But it's a spectacularly interesting thing. What was Magnus thinking? I don't think he was thinking it through at that moment. But at chess.com, people certainly fought it through. And I believe they believe Hans cheated, even to this day.

[00:44:37] And I don't think they would say that in public. They would say, you know, the evidence. Let's be clear. The chess.com report, you know, which is a very long report, said that they had evidence that Hans cheated online like 100 times. But they had no evidence that he cheated over the board. No smoking gun evidence. They had some circumstantial evidence that made his some over-the-board games seem suspicious to them.

[00:45:02] And they had received lots of tips from people saying that they were suspicious over the board games over time. But they had no evidence that he cheated over the board of the Singfield Cup. However, it wasn't exactly an exoneration. Like Hans calls that report an exoneration. And it's kind of like when Trump said, I've been exonerated to whatever Trump says he's exonerated for. You know, there's a difference between saying, I have no evidence that you cheated in this

[00:45:32] game and that I'm exonerating you from this game, right? There's a difference there. And I think if you talk to the Chess.com people off camera, they would say that they believe he cheated. So, you know, but then again, you know, I don't think they have the evidence to back that up. And I think they would admit they don't have the evidence to back that up. Yeah. I mean, the most suspicious thing for me on the Hans side is the interview afterwards where he claims he had the opening.

[00:45:59] He had studied that particular opening just the night before when Magnus had never really played that opening before. So there was like no reason to really study that. And the other suspicious thing is I really do trust Magnus's gut opinion because you can tell when something weird is happening. And Magnus probably better than anyone in the world can tell. So, but then again, Magnus was predisposed to thinking Hans was going to potentially cheat and he really didn't like Hans to begin with. So there's that issue.

[00:46:28] And then the other thing is I spoke to Ken Regan, who's a strong chess player who specializes in online cheating. And he ran his algorithms across Hans's over the board games and found statistically no evidence of cheating. But none of those algorithms are perfect either. So it really is a complicated issue that we're never going to know the answer to. We're never going to know the answer to it. I think we have to accept Hans at his word at this moment. I think that Magnus, I think it's clear that Magnus had no right to accuse him of cheating.

[00:46:56] I think that that's, that's pretty clear that there was no, you know, it reminds me of, I think there was a couple of Seinfeld episodes where George is like lying about something and then someone accused him of lying and he's upset because they have no reason to accuse him of lying, even though he is lying. Right. That's the point is that there was no evidence. Then it was a big deal to sort of attempt to ruin somebody's life because without the evidence to back it. Now in the Netflix documentary, Magnus makes it kind of seem like, or, and Magnus and

[00:47:25] his dad make it seem like a phone call with Danny Wrench made them think chess.com had the evidence that they didn't have. I don't think that was fair. Having gone through what happened in that conversation, both with Henrik and with Danny, I think what happened in that conversation was Magnus and Henrik wanted Danny to say that he had evidence that Hans had cheated. But what Danny actually said was that, you know, we support Magnus and whatever he wants

[00:47:52] to do, but I don't think it's a good idea for you to accuse him of cheating. Danny made it clear. He did not think it was a good idea because there wasn't evidence yet that they would look into it, that they were going to investigate it, that they had the responsibility to look at it. But he, he did not think that there was evidence. He did say, you know, he's cheated in the past. You know, he gave him basically the online story. But I think that Magnus and Henrik probably misread the conversation thinking that they were, they had support for their accusation.

[00:48:22] You know, it's interesting. And this is related to something that, that I'm going through personally, but Hans' statement that eventually Magnus and Hikaru are going to be weaker and Hans is going to be stronger. This is just historically true. Like it used to be the case that you could play chess into old age. And there's, there's evidence of player, strong players in their forties and fifties, like Victor Korchnoi in the seventies and Vasily Smyslov in the seventies, eighties.

[00:48:50] These were very, even Bishmanov and Anand now, but to a lesser extent. But most players, and I've just noticed this, you know, it was just studying old versus younger players. Most players end up 200 rating points lower than their peak as they get older. And you don't think that chess is like an athletic sport where obviously if you're playing basketball, you're going to get weaker over time because physically you're not as strong when you're older, but it's true mentally too somehow.

[00:49:16] And I don't know the reason why, but everybody ends up 200 rating points lower, which is like a standard deviation or two standard deviations below your peak strength. So there is going to be a period where Hans is probably going to be better than these guys, even if we're just a couple of years. And, you know, so there is a reason to be a little nervous about that for Magnus and Hikaru and all the top players, but, but Magnus is so far ahead of everyone else. It's kind of incredible.

[00:49:43] In fact, the more, you know, the more you realize how Magnus is incredible and, and it's sort of unbelievable how good he is. Yeah. Yeah. Do you think Hans can make number one one day? I mean, it's obviously hard to say, but there are so many good players. The thing is people like Sindarov and Gukesh and Prague and Faruja, let's take Prague and Sindarov as the best examples. They have such good coaching. They work so hard. They're so talented. You know, they're probably the biggest contenders for number one.

[00:50:12] And I don't know if Hans will ever be number one compared to them, you know, and, and, but, but look, and clearly there is some secret sauce, no matter how much you study and how much you learn, where you need that secret sauce to get to the top, top number one. Like there's a big difference between number one and number 10, I think. Yeah. Like it's the difference between number 10 and number 100 is the difference between number one and number 10. And so I don't know, like, like, like Wesley. So who's one, he's a top 10 player.

[00:50:42] He's been maybe the fourth or fifth highest rated player of all time. He probably can never be number one just because there's a psychology to it too. You have to be like a real killer. Magnus can kill people in a dark alley and widely. So such a nice guy, he cannot do it. Yeah. And, and Hans is almost too much of a killer. Like he just doesn't have like that balance that Magnus has. Yeah. I don't know enough of the, of the nuances at that level to really understand, but you

[00:51:12] can just see the combination of coaching and support that Sindarov and Prague have is, is beyond what Hans has. Yeah. I mean, Hans is on his own a lot, even now. I mean, he has more of a team now, but it's basically been Hans, you know, training in a little room his whole life, which is kind of admirable in a lot of ways. And, and in some ways, I think what young people understand when they see Hans is that, you know, it's a tough world and, and what you, you do what you do and, and you don't,

[00:51:41] you don't, you know, have regrets and, and the line between sort of what's right and what's wrong blurs when you're, you know, when the world is, is, is against you in a lot of ways, when you're alone and you're 16 years old, you know. How does Hans have money now? So that's a great question. I don't know the answers to that. I think, I know he's, he's got some sort of sponsor, not sponsorship. So one of the things that he felt like chess.com and the mafia took away from him was the ability to have sponsors and, and the kind of money you needed to do a proper tour and go from event to event.

[00:52:10] He was like, you know, just on whatever, whoever would take him, whatever cheap ticket he could get for most of his career. I think now I know he's got some relationship with some company was starting his own chess online something or. Yeah, ingame.ai. Yeah, exactly. I don't honestly know what that is. You know, he was like a representative of Magnus's, of, of one of Magnus's things, which is kind of funny to think about. I don't know what he makes on the streaming or that kind of stuff. I don't know the economy of, of Hans's career right now. It's a great question actually.

[00:52:38] Because yeah, he plays all these matches and stadiums and like he's, there's some switch that flipped where suddenly he had money to do things. I think he had some benefactors who, who had a business idea around him and his instant, you know, his, his moment of celebrity to utilize it, to get these tournament, these like stadium tournaments going. I mean, I think the idea of trying to turn chess into something that you get 10,000 people into a stadium for is really cool. You know, and, and I would like to see chess become like baseball or another sport.

[00:53:08] In some countries it's very popular. You know, you probably know in India, it's huge. You know, they, they, they do have 10,000 people show up to a chess event. And maybe if you had the right characters and you, one of the things chess.com did very brilliantly was create this ecosystem of streamers, which I think you can attest all the Danny wrench at chess.com. The idea that, that they were going to create this kind of like star system and give them the opportunities to sort of have access to whatever chess.com could do to help them become big names.

[00:53:37] And some of these people have, you know, five, 10 million followers across social media. And that's a big deal in an industry like that. I just, someone, I did an event last night and the, and the host said 600 million people play chess right now. 70% of people have played a game of chess. And I don't know many sports that have that kind of statistic to it. You know, 70, 70 people have not played basketball. There's no way.

[00:54:04] It's so it's like the numbers are pretty impressive on chess. So, you know, I guess we'll see what happens with it. Now, are you, is there going to be a movie of this book? Yeah. So the movie was picked up by Nathan Fielder, who I think is an absolute genius to direct and write. And Emma Stone is producing. Emma's wonderful and maybe be a part in it. We'll see. And it's at 824. I sold the movie actually before I sold the book I had written. I have this system where I, I write a treatment and I sell the Hollywood side. Then I sell the book side.

[00:54:33] Then I write the book while we attempt to develop the movie alongside it. So it's moving along. Hopefully we'll get into sort of a finished script and casting very soon. It was a very hot story when I pitched it, which was really interesting because I had no idea what the interest level would be. And it turns out a lot of people in Hollywood play chess. There was a lot of excited people about it. So it should be a really cool movie. I didn't know that Nathan Fielder and Emma Stone had teamed up to do their own production. They did a show called The Curse, which is a really funny show.

[00:55:01] And after that, this would be their first feature together with Nathan directing a big feature. So hopefully, you know, Nathan is a really interesting guy. I think he's brilliant, but he's also kind of hard to talk to. So I have no, I don't, getting information out of him is, it's not the easiest thing in the world. So, you know, I have no idea where that is right now. But 824 is just an awesome, awesome studio. I have a couple of projects with them and I think they're, they're just amazing. So I think it'll be a really cool movie. And also Nathan is so unique.

[00:55:31] If you've seen the rehearsal, which I'm sure, you know, you've seen, like you have no idea what he's going to do with it. Is that his real character? Like, yeah, he's like that. He's like that. Like, I remember when I finished the book, I sent him the book and I'm like, email him here. I finished the book, you know, and he's like, good. It's like, okay, I just spent a year writing this thing and that, but it's not, you know, he doesn't mean it in a mean way. It's just, that's, that's his reaction. It's like, he doesn't, there's no emotion. Right. Or, or I can't read his emotion. Maybe that's the way it is. Yeah.

[00:55:59] Well, Emma Stone is like the opposite. She's like wonderful and fun and like interesting. It's just, you know, he is that character, I think. And he's funny too. He's very funny, but I, you know, I don't know. I don't know how to read him, but I love him. I think he's awesome. And have you worked on a next, have you started working on a next? Yeah, I have a lot going on. So the sequel or companion piece to the social network comes out in October. It's called the social reckoning. Aaron Sorkin wrote and directed it. And so I get to sort of help promote that, which will be a lot of fun this fall.

[00:56:27] I have a new book that I sold as a big movie called the last orbit, which will be coming February of next year, February. And it's, I don't know if you followed this asteroid called YR four last year, earlier end of last year, we spotted an asteroid. It's a city killer. So if it hit, it would blow up a city. And it had the highest chance of hitting the earth that any asteroid we've seen was like 4%. Then the numbers went down and it disappeared behind the sun.

[00:56:53] We will not see this asteroid again until 2028 when it will reappear and we'll train all our telescopes on it. And NASA has all these potential plans in place of how you defend a city from an asteroid. So it's my Armageddon. Matt Shackman, who did Fantastic Four, is directing and set up at Tristar. And so I'm writing the book right now. And it's basically like predictive nonfiction starting in 2028. What does NASA have in place? And it's really cool. They've opened their doors to me and I've sort of been interviewing all the, there's a

[00:57:23] whole division of planetary defense, which is fascinating. And some really cool toys they have in place that, you know, may or may not work. So it's interesting. I've always been into asteroids and Armageddon, of course, is such an awesome movie, but an updated sort of real version of it. But it's not oil riggers going to put a nuclear weapon on a giant asteroid. But it's astronauts, if necessary, but most likely a kinetic rocket or a nuclear, but more or potentially putting asteroids out there. I mean, astronauts out there to do something about it. That book is next.

[00:57:53] And then a couple other TV stuff, you know, milling around that'll hopefully we'll get going pretty soon. You know, both you and I were advisors on Billions. I was season three. Oh, that's right. Yeah. Yeah. They got a big new show going, Brian and David, which is awesome. Yeah. That's right. You were on Billions. Yeah. I was at season five. I was a writer, a producer, and I wrote one of the episodes and I had a blast. I love those guys. And I love that show. Yeah. Great show. Yeah. Well, well, Ben, I always enjoy all of your books. I always enjoy having you on the podcast.

[00:58:22] And when you did this chess story, it's like my mind exploded because we just love chess, obviously. So I was so happy that you came on the show. And I always love talking about this stuff. But, you know, I follow the whole field very closely. And your book was in Page Turner and it was great, great talking to you about it. Thank you so much. I really love doing your show. I love talking to you. And it's awesome. I feel like we've known each other a long time now. I mean, we go back a long way. So I think you were on like six years ago, seven years ago, something like that. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, that's awesome.

[00:58:51] Well, I'm still kicking around. So thank you. No, it's awesome talking to you and best of luck and everything. And I hope this book explodes for me. You too. I can't wait for the movie to come out. It's going to be really cool. Very cool. Awesome. At first, I didn't think it was real.

[00:59:18] I woke up to this blinding light and I was transported to another place. Pluto TV. Then I heard a voice. Come with me if you want to live. There were thousands of movies and shows and they were all free. The truth is ours. It's just so beautiful. On Pluto TV, free streaming of Terminator 2, Fringe, Arrow, The 100 and The X-Files may cause excitement, loss of sleep and sudden belief in extraterrestrials. No credit cards or alien encounters necessary. Pluto TV. Stream now. Pay never. Time to use theulum. It's all true. You're right. You're right. Nothing. You're right. You're right. You're right. You're right. I'm right.